The main factors affecting the price of a PCB board

The price of PCB is a matter that many buyers have always been confused about. Many people will wonder how these prices are calculated when placing an order. Let's talk about some factors that make up the PCB price.

Take ordinary double-sided boards as an example. The main board material now uses FR4 (Shengyi, Jiantao, Guoji, three prices from top to bottom), the board thickness ranges from 0.2mm to 3.0mm, and the copper thickness ranges from 0.5oz to 3oz. PCB has caused a huge price difference in these board materials; in terms of solder mask ink, there is also a certain price difference between ordinary thermosetting oil and photosensitive green oil.

Common ones are: OSP (anti-oxidation), lead tin spraying, lead-free tin spraying, gold plating, immersion gold, and some complex processes, etc.; the more the previous production process is, the more expensive it is.

There are 800 holes on both PCBs. If the hole diameter of one board is greater than 0.2mm and the hole diameter of the other board is less than 0.2mm, it will also cause different drilling costs. If the other two PCBs are the same, but the line width and line spacing are different, one is greater than 4mil and the other is less than 4mil, it will also cause different production costs. There are also some designs with different process flows from the ordinary ones that also charge extra fees, such as keypads, carbon printing oil, half holes, buried blind holes, and disk holes.

Commonly used copper foil thicknesses are: 18um (1/2OZ), 35um (1OZ), 70um (2OZ), 105um (3OZ), 140um (4OZ), etc. The thicker the copper foil, the more expensive it is.

Commonly used are: IPC2, IPC3, enterprise standards, military standards, etc. The higher the standard, the higher the price.

1) Mold fee: For sample and small batch, the board factory generally adopts drilling and milling, and will not charge additional milling fee. When doing mass production, it is required to open the mold to punch the board, which improves efficiency and reduces production costs. The cost of a set of molds is about 800.

2) Test fee: Samples generally use flying probe testing, which is generally free for board factories now; batches require test racks to improve efficiency, which will reduce production costs at the same time. The general quotation of test racks is about 1200.

The payment method with shorter arrival time will have a lower price, such as cash payment.

1) Order quantity: The smaller the quantity, the more expensive the price will be, because even if it is 1PCS, the board factory has to make engineering data and produce film, and no process is missing.

2) Delivery period: Short production time for the factory will also cause production costs to increase.

3) The production data provided to the PCB factory must be complete (GERBER data, number of board layers, board material, board thickness, surface treatment process, ink color, character color and some special requirements must be clearly stated)

From the above discussion, it can be seen that the diversity of PCB processing prices is caused by many inevitable factors; here we can provide a rough reference price range, of course, the specific price should be directly contacted with the manufacturer.

Quotation of various factors

The following is a set of PCB valuation formulas (i.e., board utilization method):

Based on 1 square meter board, its size is 1020mm*1020mm

Assuming that the length of the PCB to be estimated is L and the width is H. Then the number of materials that can be produced for 1 square meter is (1020/L+5)*(1020/H+5)=Z (i.e., the number of layouts), Unit price =X/Z

X is the following price:

1 layer FR-1 per square meter (including processing fee): 130 RMB

2 layers FR-4 per square meter (including processing fee): 420 RMB

4 layers FR-4 per square meter (including processing fee): 720 RMB

6 layers FR-4 per square meter (including processing fee): 1200RMB

8 layers FR-4 per square meter (including processing fee): 1800RMB

10 layers FR-4 per square meter (including processing fee): 3500RMB

12 layers of FR-4 per square meter (including processing fee): 5500RMB

Price of two-layer board once = (length * width * 0.12 * quantity + length * width * 0.12 * 4 + 80) / quantity

Price of two-layer board twice = (length * width * 0.12 * quantity + 80) / quantity

Price of four-layer board once = (length * width * 0.6 * quantity + length * width * 0.12 * 6 + 1500 + 300) / quantity

Price of four-layer board twice = (length * width * 0.6 * quantity + 300) / quantity

Price of six-layer board once = (length * width * 0.8 * quantity + length * width * 0.12 * 8 + 1800 + 300) / quantity

Price of six-layer board twice = (length * width * 0.8 * quantity + 300) / quantity

PCB is calculated by multiplying the area of the board by the following unit price, which can be used for your reference. Most of the cases are like this. If there are many, go to the manufacturer to discuss.

Process:

Single-sided tin spraying: 0.035/square meter

Double-sided tin spraying: 0.45/square meter for thickness above 1.2, 0.41/square meter for thickness below 1.2

Double-sided gold plating: 0.48/square meter for thickness above 1.6, 0.45/square meter for thickness below 1.6

PCB quotations include sample and batch quotations

The delivery time of ordinary sample depends on the number of layers. Generally, one-sided is 1 day, double-sided is 2 days, and multi-layers take several days to ten days.

The unit price of small-volume boards is much higher than that of large-volume boards. For example, the large-volume production of double-sided 1.6MM boards is 450 yuan/square meter. Small-volume orders are generally convenient and fast in online shopping malls. If the quantity is large, you can talk to the manufacturer.